To Carl Leavitt Hubbs, a Modern Pioneer Naturalist on the Occasion of His Eightieth Year

Abstract

THE early naturalists who led us into this modern age of biology, such as Darwin, Wallace and Cuvier, tinkered rather little with nature. Mostly, they looked, described, thought and hypothesized. Then they returned to nature to check their ideas. Always at the center of their thoughts lay the organism in nature. That method has been supplanted largely by a wave of science based upon experiments with living things. Where the earlier naturalist trained his eyes to see the sublety of his subjects the experimentalist of today may be more in tune with instruments than with animals. The man whom we salute here is living proof that the methods-simple ones, it seems-of the earlier naturalists are as valid today as they ever were. Carl L. Hubbs has reached the highest pinnacles of recognition in his field: election to the National Academy of Sciences (1952); receipt of the Joseph Leidy Award and Medal of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (1964); membership in the Linnaean Society of London (1965); the Henry Russell Award at Michigan (192930); the Fellows Medal of the California Academy of Sciences (1966); the American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence (1973); and the Shinkishi Hatai Medal of Japan (1971), for the most remarkable contribution to marine biology in the Pacific. Named in his honor have been five genera of fishes, one of lichens, 22 species of fishes, one bird, one whale, two molluscs, one crab, three cave arthropods, two insects, three species of algae, one species of lichen and one very dry Nevada lake.1 His works continue to be modern in every respect and he has used the observational approach